


Smorgasbord

by SamtheFan99



Category: Buzzfeed: Worth It (Web Series)
Genre: ABSENCE OF INTERNALIZED HOMOPHOBIA, Angst, Cute, Eventual Smut, Fluff and Angst, Food, Friends to Lovers, Gay, Happy Ending, Intimacy, LGBT, Los Angeles, Lots of Angst, M/M, New York, RPF, Sad Boi Steven, Standrew - Freeform, did i mention the angst, no au, quick lil fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-23
Updated: 2020-10-05
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:41:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 13,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26608417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SamtheFan99/pseuds/SamtheFan99
Summary: Steven and Andrew’s relationship hadn’t been the same since Steven’s drunken episode.Moving to New York seemed like the only way to avoid the repercussions, until Andrew shows up at Steven’s NY apartment to settle the tension.
Relationships: Andrew Ilnyckyj/Steven Lim
Comments: 6
Kudos: 29





	1. Antipasti

The past eight weeks Steven has spent in New York were gray, both literally and metaphorically.   
It’s December now, and he wakes to rain, and he sleeps to rain, and eats and breathes and lingers with the rain. Though he’s an Ohio boy at heart, he aches for Los Angeles, and for more than just the weather. 

Each night he returns to his apartment, peels sodden clothes off his wet skin, and showers away the gloom. 

Their attempt to continue Worth It was a valiant one, but Steven knew his new projects would never get off the ground if he had to keep flying back and forth to LA. The show simply wasn’t as enjoyable when they had to cram four or five episodes into such a short window. Steven didn’t enjoy the food like he did before, and, regrettably, he didn’t enjoy Andrew’s company the way he had. 

Andrew had made a few deadpan-but-sensitive attempts to prod at it in the way only he can, yet Steven never had an answer. At least, not one he could say to Andrew's face. He would shrug and say the East coast had gotten to him, or maybe the constant dark skies had resulted in a severe Vitamin D deficiency, the likes of which his West-coast-accustomed skin had never suffered. Really, he was letting Andrew go. It was easier that way, to create distance, to draw the rift himself before it was inevitably ripped between them. 

Before he made the decision to move, things had gotten weird. Everyone felt it. Adam’s shifty, sidelong glances said it all. When Steven and Andrew shared a room its occupants hushed rather abruptly.


	2. Liquor

He thinks back to the start of the awkwardness. Steven and his girlfriend had broken up, and, admittedly, he’d been messy. Steven is messy in general, sure, but not the kind of hot-flailing-dumpster-fire mess that he had been that night. He was utterly plastered. So plastered, in fact, that he Ubered to Andrew’s and body slammed his front door until the Ukrainian, utterly bewildered, let him in, despite the obscene hour. Steven’s memory is foggy, but he thinks it must have been about three in the morning, since the bars booted him at two. He’d made a regrettable, drunken trip to the liquor store and bought the most expensive bottle he could find and just about chugged the thing. 

For a while he avoided the subject of his girlfriend, even as Andrew sat beside him in the middle of the night, anticipating the worst. Steven had waved the bottle in his face, Andrew would recount to him later, and rattled on and on about the expensive booze and its drastically different price point. For irony’s sake. 

Despite it all, Andrew found it endearing. Well, most of it. 

Then came the ugly. The kind of ugly the people who witness it are too uncomfortable to retell, or even think about. 

Apparently— as if saying apparently really distances Steven from that night, because why would Andrew lie? — he’d poured his absolute heart out about his girlfriend, with all the gritty details. He’d crumpled into Andrew’s arms, sprawling across his lap and sobbing into his sweatpants. Andrew wouldn’t say it explicitly, but Steven overstepped at every possible turn, and poor Andrew was simply left to suck it up and deal. He crawled up on him, getting in his face, somewhere between trying to cuddle and picking a fight. Andrew had done his best to be sensitive, but it was too much, it was all just too much— and hot-mess Steven had taken this as a rejection. 

Then, he picked a real fight. He’d shoved the poor Ukrainian in his own apartment, he’d cursed and spat threats in every direction. He’s so far avoided analyzing such a reaction. Andrew was his dearest, closest friend for so long, and yet his drunk brain didn’t seem register that. 

Then he woke up in a hospital bed with Andrew in a chair beside him, slumped over and half asleep on the edge of Steven’s mattress. At the sight of Steven’s wakefulness Andrew had snapped up and moved like he intended to stand, but after a moment of watching Steven with tired green eyes, he settled back into his chair and threaded his fingers together. Andrew’s pink bottom lip had a vibrant red gash through it. 

Andrew, as delicately and diplomatically as he was able, connected the dots for Steven, from the moment he arrived at his door to the moment he collapsed, followed by a panicked drive to the hospital. It was as Andrew suspected— alcohol poisoning. He’d waited all night and well into the morning. He let it slip that he would have waited all day, too, and then all night again. Then he caught himself. 

Andrew had driven them back to Steven’s place and dutifully put him in bed. Lots of fluids, he kept reminding Steven, repeating it like a mantra. Steven doesn’t like to think about how Andrew had fussed and fussed. With the damn crackers, too, his insistence on eating something despite how absolutely shit Steven felt. He ordered them takeout that night, even though Steven couldn’t really keep it down. He’d stayed all night, and it seemed intentional that he didn’t ask permission. He was going to stay, whether Steven liked it or not. Why invite Steven’s objections by asking?

Finally, Steven got up the courage to ask about Andrew’s split lip, anticipating that the ugly truth might be that he hit his dear friend or otherwise violently took his frustrations out on him. Andrew hesitated a moment too long. Two or three moments too long. 

‘Did I hit you?’ Steven had asked. 

‘Don’t worry about it,’ Andrew had replied. 

When Steven returned to work the following week, Andrew was strangely high-strung, the stark opposite of his usual easygoing demeanor. Andrew passed his desk often. To get coffee. To get water. To get lunch. To get more coffee. Unsubtly checking on him. 

Finally, Steven cornered Andrew in the break room and demanded an explanation. Andrew’s fingers twitched at his sides, and then he hugged him, and Steven hugged him back, and they did it for a long time. It tingled. It ached. He remembers it vividly. It ached, though Steven couldn’t tell why. 

‘You scared me,’ Andrew had confessed, in that velvety voice of his. ‘I was terrified for you.’

Steven had apologized then, likely for the thousandth time, and then thanked him for his help, also for the thousandth time. 

When they broke apart Steven allowed a moment of recovery from that inexplicable aching before asking once more about Andrew’s split lip. 

Finally, after one hell of a tense pause, Andrew had said with a tone of forced indifference,

‘You kissed me.’ Andrew prodded gingerly at his own lip. ‘Your tooth…well, you know.’

Steven sputtered, of course, and waited for the punchline of another of Andrew’s terrible jokes. It never came. Steven stood there in palpable shock. 

Then he apologized, again. He turned and left, his ears bright red. 

Then they grew colder. And colder. LA was less inviting by the day, without his girlfriend and without his best friend. When he told Andrew that he planned to move to New York, Andrew hadn’t said anything. The day he moved, Andrew didn’t hug him, no matter how Steven’s mind screamed at him to do so. 

Every trip he made to LA was stained with growing frigidity. Adam mentioned it more than once that the viewers would notice and that they should liven it up a bit. 

To hell with one drunken kiss. 

When Steven finally decided that he wouldn’t be making regular trips to LA anymore, Andrew hadn’t hugged him then, either. He barely looked at him. He shook his hand, like any two business partners would after a successful project, and watched from the sidewalk with a sadness in his eyes as his Uber drove away. A sadness that Steven couldn’t associate with a business partner, no matter how he tried. 

In his mind he was going to tell Andrew he loved him, and thank him properly for so many wonderful years of friendship. A thousand dinner dates. A thousand shared meals. A thousand knowing, sidelong glances that said, ‘I know my Worth It Winner.’ Maybe a little something more than that. 

Instead there had been a handshake. A fucking handshake. 

Japan. Canada. Korea. Australia. All over Los Angeles and several trips to New York. To Hawaii. To Texas. They’ve shared forks. They’ve shared drinks. They’ve shared countless inside jokes. There must be love somewhere between those things.


	3. Soup

Steven shakes the nostalgia away and turns off the shower. He can avoid the subject most nights, but evidently tonight isn’t one of them, despite weeks of practice. He admitted to himself once that he hears Andrew’s voice in his dreams sometimes, and those are the nights he startles awake, flushed and hard and panting and deeply, deeply sad. Steven had panicked, of course, and spent an hour obsessing, searching for an explanation. Eventually he came to the conclusion that, after every round of world-class food, Andrew’s voice was often the first thing that his mind registered. It’s just a Pavlovian response, Steven dismissed. He’d associated Andrew’s voice with the best meals he’s had in his life, the intense pleasure of luxury food, and it had nothing to do with the way the thick, silken sound of it toyed with him. 

Steven drinks more nowadays than he did in the last phase of his life. He’s drinking now, right out of the shower. Andrew would throw a fit if he knew, but Steven has it under control. He’ll never drink himself silly again. He learned his lesson the first time. 

He only drinks to release his inhibitions, to ease the rampant self-chastising he seems to do an awful lot. 

Currently he’s drinking wine from the bottle, splayed on his sofa, wrapped in nothing but a loose towel. His free hand drums against his stomach as he imagines how Andrew might scold him for his bad habit. The voice returns, echoing through his skull, stern and disapproving and deep yet gentle, yet tender. 

He sips more wine, dipping a thumb below his towel. With a flush of shame he notices his partial erection, pressed against the still damp cotton, itching to be released. Another mouthful of wine goes down, and Andrew’s voice returns in all its glory. Steven’s breath shudders out, his hips give the tiniest involuntary hitch, and then he is free from his towel. 

One more mouthful and he is palming himself, fighting for restraint but finding none, and eventually he succumbs to the want and decides that he deserves this glimmer of guilty pleasure, no matter how fleeting it is. 

And so he grasps himself firmly and gives a long pull, hissing out a sigh, his mind calling forth all the times Andrew had changed his clothing in front of him, all the times he’s fed him, all the subtle details in his eyes and lips, that intense gaze he too often felt on his face in quiet moments. 

His golden skin is vivid in his mind. Steven imagines it on him, beneath him, slipping against him as they rock together, desperate, begging, thrashing—

Steven grips the wine bottle as he comes, grunting a little through his teeth, adamant to keep himself quiet. His eyes squeeze shut as a sudden warmth spatters across his chest and stomach. 

As he is cleaning himself off, his doorbell rings. He lowers his bottle and wraps the towel tightly around his waist, crossing his apartment frustratedly. 

His neighbor is always bugging him at this hour. She’s got a huge crush on him, and she regularly tries to invite herself into his place with a box of baked goods (usually muffins) and the promise of a good night. 

When he flings open the door, his hasty rejection halfway out of his mouth, he freezes. 

“Sorry,” Andrew says, still dripping from the rain. “If you were expecting muffins, I didn’t bring any.”

“Andrew,” Steven breathes out, sucker punched with surprise. “What’re…what are you doing here?”

Andrew shrugs, his eyes flicking to Steven’s bare chest almost imperceptibly. 

“I wanted to see you,” Andrew says, rubbing the back of his neck, chasing several droplets down toward his collar. He squeezes his eyes shut. “No, actually, I felt like I had to see you.”

“Why?” Steven asks dumbly. 

Andrew lowers his gaze, nodding at the question but not answering it. “Sorry, I should have considered the time. We can talk tomorrow— if you want.”

“Where would you even go?” 

“I’ll get a motel in Midtown, probably,” Andrew says with a shrug. “I should have texted first. Sorry.”

Steven’s stomach sinks at the idea of him wandering through Manhattan in the wet darkness, trying to find a place to stay at this hour. How horrible of a friend would Steven be if he sent him back out into the cold when he has a perfectly good couch?

“You can stay with me,” Steven tells him, almost shyly, turning away to look at something else, anything else. “I have a couch and all that. You could have it. Well, not have it, but you could use it. Sleep on it. Save some money on that motel.”

Andrew shakes his head solemnly, turning his shoulders slightly back toward the hallway. “No, it’d be an intrusion. I see that now. I should have waited till morning.”

Steven swallows the awkwardness, pointedly ignoring the glaring fact that he’s standing here mostly naked, having just masterbated to the man standing before him. 

Oh, god, that’s weird. His post-orgasm clarity has given him the insight into just how fucking weird it was to do that. 

His face flushes bright red. 

“Stay with me,” Steven demands, all but stomping his foot. “You shouldn’t go out now, it’s dangerous. I’m not letting you go out.”

Andrew cocks an eyebrow, his sideways gaze questioning. “Steven?”

“You can’t go,” Steven says, taking Andrew by the bicep and dragging him into the apartment, flinging him into the entryway and closing the door firmly behind him. 

Andrew simply complies, stumbling in and waiting for Steven’s next bold move. 

“Um, I have soup,” Steven says, gesturing to his kitchen. “In there. I made the soup, if you want some.”

“That’s okay,” Andrew says quickly. “I ate on the plane.”

“You’ll catch a cold if you don’t have soup,” Steven insists, mindlessly reflecting the old wives tale his mother repeated throughout his childhood. “My bedroom’s over there. You can change out of those clothes while I heat up some soup.”

Andrew opens his mouth to argue, but decides last minute it would be rude to protest his host’s wishes in his apartment. He nods obediently and makes for the bedroom, shutting the door firmly behind him. 

Steven’s bedroom is pretty barebones, entirely too plain for his bubbly personality. Or, Andrew supposes, his once-bubbly personality. He thinks Steven had gotten too serious since the breakup, or maybe since that fateful night he showed up at Andrew’s. 

Andrew huffs and strips his wet clothes off and drops them into Steven’s laundry basket. This was payback, if anything, for showing up unannounced. 

When he emerges, Steven has a saucier of soup heating on the stove while he makes up Andrew’s sleeping arrangements. The sheets are all mismatched, one blue, one yellow, the pillowcase printed with the vibrant logo from some cartoon that Andrew doesn’t recognize. The tiniest smile quirks on his lips. This was more like the Steven he knew. 

“There’s a charger by that wall there,” Steven announces, pointing. “Mi casa es tu casa.”

“Thanks,” Andrew says politely, dropping his bag by the sofa. “Hopefully I won’t be in your way.”

Steven nods, setting both hands on his hips and dragging his eyes away from Andrew’s stoic face. With a cursory glance around the place Andrew sees the various awards they’d won for Worth It, several congratulatory plaques from Buzzfeed commemorating each season they released. The three of them had their picture taken by a professional photographer when the show ended. They’d all dressed to the nines and posed elegantly, draped over ornate chairs they often found in high-end restaurants. 

That photo stares him down from the wall above the television. Beside it, a blown up selfie they’d taken halfway through shooting Season 3, snapped by Andrew, of the boys in Steven’s car, grinning and casual, the tiniest bit disheveled. They look happy. They were happy, the three of them together. Andrew’s years beside Steven were the best of his life. 

Still in his towel, Steven steals away to check the soup, and within minutes he returns with two steaming bowls. He lowers them onto the coffee table, and he’s about to sit, when he snaps up again and excuses himself. Andrew waits, drumming his fingers against his knees, fighting the urge to fish his phone from his backpack and fiddle with it as a distraction. 

Then Steven is beside him again, this time wearing plaid pajama bottoms and a Worth It shirt from their original merch line. They each take their bowls, casting questioning glances at each other.

“For old time’s sake?” Andrew says, lifting his spoon. 

Steven looks away. “You hated it when we first started.”

“Yes, I remember.”

He waits. Steven meets him in the middle and touches their spoons together. It’s more gratifying than Andrew will admit. 

They eat for a minute or two, side by side, the way they had both publicly and privately countless times. Neither ever mentioned it — though Adam had, once — that there was an inherent intimacy in sharing so many meals. 

Andrew knows he’s never dated anyone as long as he’d dated Steven, officially or not. 

Andrew buries his attention into his soup, pointedly ignoring Steven’s brief, sidelong glances cast his way. He stirs and sips, stirs and sips, trying to gather up the courage to answer what is bound to be the first question out of Steven’s mouth. 

Finally, it comes. 

“Why did you come here, Andrew?”

Andrew only has a partial answer prepared, and it tumbles out of his mouth with less eloquence than usual. 

“I haven’t seen you since the last episode of Worth It, and I just thought…”

Steven waits for the rest. “Thought what?”

Andrew shakes his head. “Nothing important, really. I thought maybe we could, y’know, hit the town for some New York pizza. One of our old spots.”

“You just came to…hang out?”

“Yeah.” Andrew pauses. “Is that…weird?”

“To fly across the country just to chill for no particular reason?” Steven treads carefully, toying with his spoon. “It’s just…it’s a long way to travel just to see me.”

“We were best friends in LA,” Andrew reminds him, unable to hide his wavering confidence despite his low and steady voice. “Till you…till we…till your breakup.”

Steven’s face gets hot. “Right.”

But they know the real reason. 

Andrew is desperate for closure, but he doesn’t want to push Steven too far. The breakup was painful, Andrew doesn’t doubt that, but he can’t help but feel it wasn’t entirely that which drove him away. 

Andrew clears his throat. “I thought I’d have a scar. You know, on my lip.”

Steven doesn’t answer. 

“But I don’t,” Andrew adds quickly. “I checked. I don’t.”

“Good,” says Steven, mostly under his breath. 

“Speaking of,” Andrew continues, toeing the line, testing the waters. “I was just a little curious…you know, about why it might’ve happened.”

Steven shrugs one shoulder, focusing intently on his soup in avoidance of the question. 

“Cause you know I wouldn’t judge you for anything. At all. I feel like we’ve come to understand each other over the years.”

“I guess so.” Steven drinks down the rest of his soup and rises abruptly. “I was blackout drunk. What more is there to understand?”

“Well, I’ve seen you drink on more than one occasion. You never do anything un-Stevenlike, and kissing me like that was the most un-Stevenlike thing you’ve ever done.” He hesitates, gauging Steven’s reaction. “Unless it wasn’t un-Stevenlike.”

Steven steals away into the kitchen then to put his bowl away, leaving Andrew’s question to hang in the air. 

Reluctantly he returns, after two or three minutes of stalling, standing with his arms folded over his chest at the threshold between the wood and the tile. 

“What does that mean?” Steven asks, hopefully hiding his quickened breathing under his crossed arms. 

“I thought maybe it was something you’d been wanting to do. Something you didn’t find the courage to do while sober.”

“No, it’s not,” Steven retorts coldly. 

Andrew forces away the urge to cringe at the unfamiliar tone. “Right. Okay.”

“Why even ask?”

“I just wanted to know if it had something to do with you moving.”

“I told you, I needed a fresh start.”

“I get that. I guess I assumed I would still be welcome in your life.”

“You are!” Then, quieter, “You are.”

Andrew’s gaze remains firmly set on Steven’s face. Steven heaves out a sigh. 

“I know that I haven’t exactly been in touch, but…” Steven begins, but trails off. 

But what?

“I think I should get a hotel,” Andrew says, rising from the couch and reaching for his bag. 

“No!” Steven interjects. “No, it’s okay, really. I want you to stay.”

“You want me to stay?” Andrew repeats, for clarity’s sake. “Are you sure?”

Steven nods, his face down. 

“Say it, then, Steven.”

“I’m absolutely sure that I want you to stay, Andrew.”

Steven closes the distance between them, stooping to retrieve Andrew’s discarded bowl, and pauses to study his tight face, his set frown. 

“I get it. I’ve been a bad friend,” Steven says. “We can do brunch tomorrow and, you know, reconnect. If you want.”

“I do want,” Andrew confirms. 

“Okay. Goodnight, then. If you need me I’ll be through there.” Steven points to his bedroom door. 

“If I need you?” Andrew echoes. 

“If you need me.”


	4. Brunch

Regrettably, Steven had watched Andrew sleep for a moment beyond creepy. He’d risen mid-morning and gone to grab some water when he passed the couch that he’d almost forgotten was occupied. Everybody knew Andrew was a beauty, though Steven didn’t quite feel it excused his behavior. 

In wakefulness, Andrew carries a tension in his face and shoulders, but here there is an absence of that. His body is soft now, unconcerned. His hair, however, is a disaster. 

He scrambles into the kitchen when Andrew begins to shift, rolling steadily into consciousness. Steven stops by the sink and fills two glasses like a proper host. A low and scratchy voice calls his name from the living room, a just-risen voice that boils his core. 

Damn it. 

Steven gets his bearings, drawing a deep, steadying breath to extinguish the heat in him, and delivers one glass to Andrew, sitting up but not fully awake. 

Steven takes the seat beside him, regretting the decision instantly. In a single night Andrew has lent these sheets his musky, masculine scent, an aroma so portent that it immediately fills Steven’s nostrils. It surrounds him now, so thoroughly that it almost makes him dizzy. 

“Sleep okay?” Andrew asks him, downing the glass in one go. 

Steven adamantly refuses to watch. With the way things have been going, he’ll likely get lost in it, Andrew’s upturned face, maybe a trickle down the side of his mouth, his Adam’s apple bobbing with each swallow. 

Steven fights back a shudder. 

Andrew slams the cup down on the coffee table and wipes the back of his hand across his lips. He clears his throat and rubs his eyes, giving the room’s decor a once over before turning toward Steven. 

“So. Brunch?”

“Yeah,” Steven agrees noncommittally, sipping distractedly at his water. “I’m starving.”

Then, with no warning, Andrew slides his shirt over his head and drops it in his lap. He leans forward, fishing in his backpack for fresh clothing. Instinctively, Steven jerks his eyes away to watch the opposite wall.

“What?” Andrew snorts. “You’ve seen me change before. Many times.”

“Just being considerate of your, erm, privacy,” Steven says, and leaves in a hurry to get ready. 

•••

Andrew is the same old Andrew that Steven remembers, only maybe a notch more downtrodden. 

Since the day is sunny, they sit on the patio and sip mimosas with their brunch. Steven almost can’t believe their luck with the weather. It’s almost as if Andrew brought the sunshine with him. 

For the first half of their meal, they eat in relative silence, making the occasional quip or comment about the food, light small talk, trading news about Adam and Annie and Rie and all their friends in LA. The conversation is sparse, but Steven doesn’t mind. 

In fact, Steven is hopeful that they’d be able to avoid the topic of anything heavy. They’d always had their best talks over food. Secrets came out over dinner, confessions came out over breakfast. Lunch was always easygoing chitchat, the kind where they’d realize later all the intimate details they’d revealed without much thought at all. 

Yeah. Eating with Andrew is a hazard for anyone wanting to keep their demons close. It’s simply too easy to confess anything and everything to him. 

Then, a man comes around to refill their mimosas, “for the lovely couple”, and the facade shatters. 

“So,” Andrew begins. “If it wasn’t the kiss that chased you away from me, what was it?”

Steven almost chokes on his French toast. 

“Nothing chased me away,” Steven insists. “I already told you, I needed a fresh start.”

“Would you still have left had I never told you about the kiss?”

“Stop saying that word,” Steven snaps at him. 

“What, kiss?”

“Yes, knock it off. People will think we’re a couple.”

“They obviously already think we’re a couple.” Andrew shrugs. “What’s the issue, anyway? Are you ashamed of me?”

“No, it’s not that. I’m just, you know…”

“Seeing someone already? Is it serious?”

“I’m not seeing anyone. I just…” Steven cuts himself off to lower his voice. “I just can’t have anyone thinking I have feelings for you. Okay?”

Andrew sits back in his chair, letting out a long breath. Steven’s eyes remain tensely trained on his face, watching every minuscule movement he makes in anticipation of his next piercing question. 

Finally, he asks, “Why’s that, Steven?”

“Well, we have an internet following, don’t we? Analyzing our every move. The audience sees things that aren’t even there.” Steven exhales. “The shippers would lose their minds if they ever found out, and I don’t need to be bombarded with those kinds of questions.”

“Why?” Andrew presses. “You can shut them down. It’s not like the shippers even have a leg to stand on. Like you said, they see things that aren’t there.”

“Right,” Steven agrees tentatively. 

“Unless you think there is something there, and you had to quit before the shippers detected it.”

This comment is so on-the-nose that Steven can’t tell if Andrew is joking or not. There’s the faintest whisper of a grin on his lips, but other than that there’s no trace of amusement or teasing. Steven tries to laugh it off but it comes out strangled, and Andrew leans forward to make sure he’s not choking. 

“Good one,” Steven forces out. 

“Thanks,” Andrew says, deadpan. 

Evidently, he wasn’t joking.


	5. Coffee

They grab coffee afterward, mostly as an excuse to wander through Manhattan. They’re both pretty comfortable in the city, now draped in its annual Christmas decor, but with the other in tow they feel a strange, distantly familiar sense of invincibility that they both revel in. They pretend it’s just the coffee so worthy of indulgence, but the truth is that they feel more at ease than they have in weeks. 

They sip their drinks and meander. Steven takes Andrew here and there, pointing out landmarks, any particularly attractive Christmas displays, and his favorite places to order from, despite the absurd delivery charges. Each thing Steven reveals about his new life that is reminiscent of his habits in Los Angeles brings Andrew the slightest touch of relief. Paying too much for Postmates is very much like Steven. Ordering enough Szechuan for ten full meals is something Andrew vividly remembers witnessing more times than he can count, though he never tried to discourage this extravagance because Andrew was always invited to join him. 

He can’t quite place it, but a warm calmness spreads through his chest. It reminds him of the time he dropped his phone and panicked at the crack that resulted, only to discover it wasn’t the screen that had broken but rather the screen protector. As though he hadn’t lost as much as he thought. 

Andrew remembers the first time it occurred to him that Steven’s new temperament might be permanent. To think such a thing had almost made him sick. He’d left work an hour early, after the third or fourth time he’d passed Steven’s newly empty desk, and lamented over the loss of his dear friend. 

Now, hearing him rattle on, following the occasional beaming smile, his soul unfurls a bit, taking in Steven’s familiarity like fresh air.


	6. Churros

Eventually they wind up in Central Park, at the end farthest from Steven’s apartment. He hadn’t gotten the chance to explore all of this side yet, though he thinks there’s no one better to accompany him than Andrew. 

Andrew stops, mid-stride, and sighs, almost in longing. 

“I didn’t mean to make it weird earlier,” he says to Steven. 

“You didn’t,” Steven tries to placate him. 

“No, I did. I want this to be a nice time. I know I sprung myself on you, but…” Andrew takes a breath, gathering himself. “I did miss you. Los Angeles is lonely without you.”

Steven is caught between a blush and a swoon. 

Has anyone ever said anything so sweet to him before?

“Are you sure you don’t just miss having an excuse to eat thousand-dollar food?” 

Andrew smiles, barely. The impending sunset has made him sentimental. 

Steven’s attempted joke drops. “No, I know. I’ve missed you, too, Andrew. New York isn’t exactly the friendliest place, but I was starting to feel that same loneliness in LA before I left.” 

“I know. I could tell.”

“Could you?”

“You stopped speaking to me and Adam almost entirely, save for the days we filmed or outlined. You pulled away.” And then, without a trace of emotion in his voice, Andrew confesses. “It made me sad.”

“Sad?”

Andrew nods, lifting his chin to feign some confidence. 

“Sorry,” Steven says. “I didn’t intend that.”

“You did what you had to do, I suppose. You pursued your fresh start.”

Steven nods. “I did.”

“And I'm so proud of you.”

Steven squeezes both eyes shut. “Andrew—”

“Come on. It was hard to say. Just accept it.”

“Okay. Thank you.”

“Sorry. I guess I’m being a little dramatic.” Andrew forces his mouth into a grin. “We passed a churro stand a ways back. Can I buy you one?”

Steven breaks into a smile, a real one. “As if I would ever turn down a churro.”

•••

The churro guy recognizes them. 

“I hadn’t’a thought you guys’d hang out together in real life,” he says to them, in a thick Brooklyn accent, as he wraps two churros in paper.

“Why not?” Andrew asks. 

“Yeah, we’re friends,” Steven affirms. “We didn’t fake it for the show or anything.”

“Dunno. So much stuff on the internet is baloney nowadays,” the vendor says, handing over their churros. “You know, I’m something of a foodie myself. Tried to make a churro with caviar and truffle.”

“How was it?”

“Godawful. But hey, I tried.”

“How much do we owe you?”

“Nothin’, if we can take a picture.”

They take the picture, of course, and thank him graciously. 

They find themselves in a playground, side by side on a swing set, crunching away at free churros. 

Steven feels like a kid again, on a playdate with his closest companion. Winter’s early sunset had surprised them both, plunging the city abruptly into darkness. Maybe it wasn’t so abrupt. It could be that Steven had simply lost himself to the easy pleasure of connection, something he once felt daily but that had become rare since his night at Andrew’s. 

But he’d felt it there, in multitudes, just as he feels it here, now. 

Steven surrenders to the feeling, of being known and of being understood. He tosses his head back and laughs, wriggling in the swing, allowing a gleeful exuberance to bubble out of him. 

And finally, finally, Andrew recognizes him. 

And he joins him in his outpour, somewhere between relieved and invigorated. 

Then they are just two anonymous men, guffawing on a swingset as though nothing wrong had ever happened between them. 

Andrew's mind doesn’t dwell on the unhappy city that awaits his return. He thinks only of Steven, only inches away, glittering with the same carefree joy that drew them together in the first place. 

Then, in the midst of their peace, a sudden downpour. 

In the darkness of early evening neither of them had seen the gathering storm clouds. Both men curse and scramble for cover, abandoning the playground and running toward a covered stage where, if Steven remembers correctly, they hold Shakespeare in the Park each week. 

Somewhere amid their stumbling race Steven reaches out to clasp hands with Andrew. 

So they aren’t separated, of course. 

When they reach the overhang they both pretend they don’t notice their tangled fingers. They huff and pant like they ran much farther than they had, using their feigned breathlessness as an excuse to delay their separation. 

But both are painfully aware. Achingly aware. 

Andrew palm is warm against Steven’s. Warm and heavy and firm. It grounds him, but doesn’t satisfy him. 

Silently he begs Andrew to be braver, or bolder, than he. Steven’s breathing never quiets; his anticipation is simply too much. 

Andrew senses this. Steven has returned to his old habit of wearing his every emotion on his face for the world to read. 

Daringly, Andrew rubs his thumb back and forth across Steven’s knuckles. It’s almost forceful, the way he does it, but it’s wonderful regardless. 

Until Steven realizes that, with this tiny-yet-earth-shattering gesture, Andrew has outed their secret tenderness, dragged it into the open. Steven can no longer claim ignorance to it. He must decidedly break them apart, or decidedly remain together. 

But Steven's insecurity gets the best of him, and one by one he detaches his fingers from Andrew’s. He pleads for another distraction, for something to dismiss this obligation and allow them to linger. A clap of thunder, maybe, to startle them closer. And then they would have seamlessly invaded each other’s personal bubble with no expectation to justify it. 

Instinctively, Andrew traps Steven’s hand between both of his, ten warm, nimble fingers coming down over Steven’s thin and pale ones. If it was uncertain before it’s undeniable now; Andrew had reaffirmed this debauchery twice, decisively. 

In a perfect world, it would be Steven’s turn, and he wouldn’t let the opportunity pass him by. 

Andrew would be the perfect blend of his old life, a well-loved life, and his fresh start. An old friend, trustworthy, intimate, but in a totally new way. Against his own wishes, Steven acknowledges the temptation to familiarize his hands and mouth with Andrew’s body. 

He imagines what it might be like to kiss him, only properly this time. Soberly. Steven presumes Andrew would taste of cinnamon, and he would dominate every corner of his mouth, laving that spicy-sweetness over every last inch. 

Maybe Andrew’s tongue would curl around his the way it curls around those melodic Ukrainian words. 

Steven wants it, bad, but not with the searing desire he knows how to handle (Andrew would undoubtedly make a masturbation joke of that, handle). 

What Steven feels now isn’t so barbaric. It’s creeping, secretive, a whispering kind of want that permeates his soul. A desire, maybe, to sit too close, to taste sugar on his mouth, to feed him small morsels and watch an innocent pleasure bloom on his face. Yes, he wants this, and desperately. 

Why not reach out and take it? Here they both are, damp, with rain hanging off the ends of their hair. It’s a still-life, like the ones he’s seen in the MOMA, only deeply personal and infinitely more beautiful because it contains Andrew, watching him with his trademark-intense gaze.

But it isn’t a perfect world, and the moment slips. Their hands fall apart. 

“We should go,” Andrew says, with a dissatisfied smile. “Pizza, maybe?”

“I know a place,” Steven agrees numbly. 

They flex their fingers to dispel the stiffness, but the chill remains.


	7. Pizza

Eating together feels natural. As though their reunion couldn’t be avoided, solely for the purpose of eating side by side at least one more time. Steven understands now that all the meals he’s sat down to alone never could begin to compare to those he’s shared with Andrew. 

A three dollar pizza eaten beside Andrew on a wet bench by a busy street is infinitely more gratifying than a thousand dollar dish eaten alone in the bougiest of restaurants. 

Why had Steven left Los Angeles? Really?

Did he run away? 

Was there something he knew he couldn’t hide if he stayed?


	8. Milkshakes

They get milkshakes afterward. 

Steven watches Andrew’s lips. He shouldn’t but he does. 

Andrew is painfully aware. 

He’s also painfully aware of the deep chasm Steven’s absence left in him. Not when Worth It ended, no, but rather when Steven no longer shared his city. When he knew there would be no more drunken surprises. No more running around town like fools. No more coffee intermissions at the Buzzfeed office. 

It was never just about the show, or the food, or the luxury or the travel or the quasi-celebrity status. 

It was always about Steven. 

He sat for weeks and wondered why it hurt him so deeply and so personally when he left, why it felt disarmingly like abandonment. 

A drunken slew of slurred nonsense shouldn’t have so much power over the way he saw his dearest friend, but it was a catalyst for something else that neither would admit to. At least, not then. 

But Andrew had fessed up and boarded the plane, even if Steven was determined to keep it all under wraps. Even if nothing manifests, if he never finds closure, Andrew will be able to say with his whole heart that he tried. He’ll prod and dodge Steven’s half-truths all weekend if he has to, but his conscience needs to know he tried. 

Andrew chews on his straw absently, watching Steven jab at something at the bottom of his cup. 

“They didn’t blend my milkshake well,” Steven complains. “How’s yours?”

“Inexplicably delicious,” Andrew tells him absently. “Probably one of the most satisfying things I’ve had since you left.”

“I get it. Food doesn’t taste the same without you, either.” 

Andrew finds some relief in that. At least it wasn’t only him lamenting over the sudden blandness of his meals. 

They wait for a taxi, both men invested in their milkshakes until a yellow cab pulls up beside them. Andrew opens the door and ushers Steven in, sliding in beside him. The back isn’t quite spacious but it is roomy enough to comfortably accommodate them both. Regardless of this, they sit so their knees are touching, facing one another ever so slightly. 

Steven in the muted city glow, rattling on about some Thai place he found in Brooklyn, is truly a sight. Andrew is lost to the sound of his voice, the glisten of his cheeks and hair, slicked with rain. He thinks he could watch him forever, immersed in his spirit, obligated to their close proximity and never feeling more at home. 

But eventually Steven begins to squirm under his stare and Andrew must avert his eyes to the window.


	9. Muffins

The city is alive with Saturday night shenanigans, shenanigans Andrew would love to participate in if he were ten years or so younger. 

Recently he’s been thinking about his future. His work, his finances, to some degree, but mostly about family, about travel, about children, marriage, settling down. He and Adam went to a bar not long ago where Andrew confessed all this, and Adam, in his infinite, soft-spoken wisdom, suggested that he investigate what (or who) lies at the center of all this sentimentality. 

Does Steven want kids?

Surely they’ve talked about it. Why can’t he remember?

Andrew knows he wants to get married. A grand wedding, a huge party, an extravagant honeymoon. Steven’s an unabashed hopeless romantic. 

When they arrive at Steven’s apartment building they stop outside the elevator, clutching mostly empty cups and rocking back and forth from foot to foot. They wait several minutes but the doors never open. 

“Elevator must be out,” Steven says, nodding toward the stairwell. “They keep saying they’ll fix it.”

Andrew trails him to the door and up the stairs to the eighth floor, and there they find the door to the hallway locked. Steven groans and lets his head fall against the jamb. 

“Shit,” Steven says, steadying his breath from the climb. “Okay, hold on.”

“Are we locked in?”

“Yeah, just give me a second.”

Steven pulls his phone from his pocket and scrolls through his contacts. As it rings, he gives Andrew a begrudging look and sighs. 

“Never thought I’d actually need her number.”

Andrew hears a voice on the other end, shrill and attentive and ceaseless. Steven grimaces, shuffling a few inches closer to Andrew as he tries to disrupt her rambling. 

They exchange looks. 

“Yeah, yeah, that’s really cool and all,” Steven interrupts, “but I’m locked in the stairwell. Could you please just open the door?”

A pause. 

“You really don’t have to bring any muffins.”

Another pause. 

“I just ate actually.”

A much longer pause. 

“Could you please just come open the door?”

He hangs up, rather abruptly. It’s one of those un-Stevenlike things that Andrew didn’t anticipate. He was always very polite, very personable, even to people he disliked. 

It’s also a rarity to find someone Steven dislikes. At least, it used to be. 

Andrew doesn’t like to think this city has changed, or will change, Steven. Will he simply revert to the cold and unfamiliar person he was yesterday?

They wait. Nobody comes. 

“She’s mad,” Andrew says. “You made her mad.”

“Was I too harsh?” Steven asks, running his hand backward through his hair. “She’s really sweet and all, but just too damn persistent.”

“So she’s behind the whole muffin thing?” Andrew asks, distantly remembering that Steven had mentioned something about muffins as he opened the door yesterday. 

In that moment, Andrew had been dazed with anticipation, arriving at Steven's apartment uninvited, with no idea what to expect as far as whether his sudden presence would be well received or not. The hallway had seemed almost oppressively hot in those seconds before they came face to face. He hadn’t thought to question the muffins. 

“She brings me muffins all the time. She must think the only thing that stops me from sleeping with her is my chronic muffin shortage.”

Andrew chuckles. “Just not into her that way, huh?”

“No, I’m not. It doesn’t help that my parents call every week asking if I’ve found anybody yet.”

“You mean to date?”

Steven nods, squinting. “They’re itching to attend a wedding. What’s worse, they’ve already chosen their grandkid’s names and colleges.”

Andrew quirks an eyebrow, amused. “Oh?”

“I have to start saving now if I’m ever going to afford to send little James and Kira to Princeton.”

They laugh. 

“Parents can be intense. Especially yours,” Steven says. “Ukrainian moms scare me.”

“Are you joking? Your dad could kill someone with a single glance.”

Steven chortles. “Yeah. Not you, though, so you have nothing to worry about.”

“Why not me?”

“Well, cause he likes you.” Steven rests against the railing, sipping at the remnants of his melted shake. “They both do, actually. They even said…”

He trails off, laughing a bit under his breath as though he’d just told an inside joke. 

“Said what?”

Steven shakes his head, his grin slowly fading. “Nothing.”

“Tell me,” Andrew urges, leaning his shoulder against the wall beside Steven, fiddling with his straw. “I deserve to know exactly how wonderful your parents think I am.”

“Yeah,” Steven agrees noncommittally. “They’d probably be ecstatic if they rolled up to my wedding and found us under the altar together.”

Andrew snorts. “Are you sure about that? I don’t think they’d exactly approve of us as a couple.”

“No, they would.” Steven steals a glance at Andrew. “In fact, they told me as much.”

“Like, as a joke, right?”

Steven shakes his head, the movement so subtle that Andrew isn’t convinced he understands. 

“For real?” Andrew says, feeling a sudden itch for perfect clarity, to know for the first time in a long time exactly what Steven is thinking. “Your parents approve of me…like that?”

Steven nods once, completely unreadable. “They do.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.” Steven’s eyes flick upward, wandering along the cracks in the drywall, desperately avoiding Andrew’s ever-intense gaze. “They’re our biggest shippers, actually.”

Though it’s presented as a joke, it doesn’t feel like Steven wants Andrew to laugh at this, so Andrew doesn’t laugh. 

He doesn’t even smile. 

Finally, Andrew’s confession slips. 

“My mom thought we were already together.” He pauses. “When I told her we weren’t, she said I was wrong.”

“Wrong?” Steven inquires, with a forced chuckle. “As if we wouldn’t know, or something like that?”

“Yeah, something like that. Something about being blind to the obvious, yadda yadda.”

Steven shrugs one shoulder. “Your mom is a, uh, unique woman.”

“Funny enough, I’ve never known her to be wrong about these kinds of things.” Andrew watches Steven hang his head further. “She asks about you every time we talk.”

“My parents, too.”

“Do they ask if we’ve ‘pulled the trigger’? Cause that’s what my mom always wants to know.”

“They do,” Steven confirms. “Only they use the Chinese equivalent of that saying, which I think is a bit more intense.”

At this point the tension is overwhelming. Steven won’t meet Andrew’s insistent gaze, and finally he relents and watches his shoes instead. 

To relieve some of the pressure, Steven sighs and shuffles in place, sweeping his foot over the dusty floor. “Parents, huh?”

Meanwhile, Steven’s hand hangs at his side, idle and inviting. Andrew is convinced that enough subtle nudging will break Steven’s stubborn resolve. If he could just reach out and intertwine their fingers once more…

The door flings open then, framing a beautiful young woman, dressed to the nines, holding a Tupperware container filled with muffins. She is visibly surprised, gawking unabashedly at Andrew from the threshold. 

“Andrew,” she says. “You’re Andrew.”

“That’s me,” Andrew confirms. 

“She’s a fan of the show,” Steven mumbles to him, leaning close to his ear. “A big fan.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt whatever,” she sputters out, gesturing vaguely, “whatever’s going on here.”

Steven thinks quickly, taking Andrew’s free hand and gripping it firmly, holding it up into her line of sight and waving it demonstratively. 

“Just me and my boyfriend,” Steven asserts. “Home from our date.”

“Boyfriend?” she repeats. 

“Yup. Boyfriends,” Andrew affirms seamlessly, despite the explosive thumping that erupts in his chest at this word. “That’s us.”

“Ugh,” she says, swiveling and storming back toward her apartment. “I should have fucking guessed.”

Steven catches the door just before it closes, inching his foot across the threshold. Andrew is partially dragged with him, as Steven’s hand remains clamped around his. 

Andrew wonders if this is intentional. 

“Imagine if our parents heard that,” Steven muses, pulling Andrew from the stairwell. 

“Yeah, imagine.”

Andrew’s hand loosens as they pass through the hallway. To his surprise, Steven’s hand tightens. 

It is intentional, after all. 

They stop outside Steven’s apartment as he fumbles with his keys, pointedly denying help from his other hand in doing so. Andrew can’t help but blush at this.


	10. Tea

The apartment is freezing on its own, but their wet clothes don’t help. They strip their sodden coats and shoes off, as Steven goes immediately into the kitchen to put on some tea, and Andrew absently follows, doubling the path of wet footprints on the floor. 

“Go shower,” Steven orders him. “And hurry.”

“You sure?” Andrew asks, his teeth beginning to chatter. 

“Yeah. Towels are under the sink. You have five minutes before I kick you out of there, though.”

Andrew nods and scurries off, first toward the living room for his pajamas, and next to the bathroom. 

As he waits, Steven huddles around the stove, warming his hands against the kettle. The thought of Andrew, surrounded by warm steam, brings some degree of comfort. 

Had it been this cold in the stairwell? They would have noticed, right? Or were they both too occupied by the knowledge that their parents approve of their partnership?

According to Andrew’s mom, it was already more than a partnership. 

The thought makes his cheeks flush. She and the whole internet, apparently. 

Andrew reappears at his side, a towel around his neck, grinning, glowing with warmth. The sight of it is so soothing that Steven sits back on his heel and smiles dreamily, imagining that Andrew’s chest must be wonderful to lie against. 

“I’ll put on something to watch while you shower,” Andrew tells him, fingering the two tea strainers Steven had filled and set aside. “Wanna watch a Christmas movie or something?”

“I love Christmas movies,” Steven grins, stripping off his button up to reveal a white undershirt, his chest partially visible under the damp fabric. “Yeah, put on one of those Hallmark rom-coms.”

Andrew smirks. “I was thinking more like A Christmas Story. But whatever makes you happy.”

Then, without thinking, Steven says, “You make me happy.”

If it weren’t for Steven’s casual tone, Andrew might have been surprised. Steven drapes his shirt across the back of a chair and smiles pleasantly, breezing past him on his way into his bedroom. Andrew intercepts him and takes him by the shoulders and pulls him into a hug, despite how cold and damp he is, and they linger for a moment. 

Several moments, actually, but as far as either of them are concerned, time has stopped. They hadn’t done this often in Los Angeles, but there they had taken each other for granted. 

Andrew won’t make that mistake again. 

As far as Steven knows, they could remain here forever, unconcerned, breathing Andrew in. 

When the hug breaks and Steven leaves to shower, Andrew discovers a wet spot on his shirt in the shape of a heart from Steven’s still-damp clothing. 

But he’s not much of a believer in signs from the universe. 

As he scrolls through Netflix's surprisingly large assortment of Christmas movies for something to watch, idly drying his hair with one hand as he does, the lights flicker and then die, along with the television and, evidently, the stove.

As soon as he processes what’s happened, he hears Steven calling for him from the shower. He feels blindly for his phone on the couch and switches on the flashlight, then makes his way to the bathroom door. 

“I’m here, Steven.”

“It’s dark.”

“I know.”

“Did the power go out?”

“Looks like it.”

“Do you have a light or something? I don’t want to slip.”

“Got my phone here. Can I open the door?”

“Uh. Yeah.”

Cautiously, Andrew turns the knob and steps inside, immersed in steam, shrouding Steven’s silhouette from behind the shower door. Even with the frosted glass, Andrew can see him shivering, curled partway over himself with the water shut off. The only sound is the occasion drip from the showerhead and the barely audible chattering of Steven’s teeth. 

“You okay, Steven?”

“The water got cold really fast.”

Andrew stoops to get him a towel from beneath the sink, to which Steven objects. 

“What are you doing?” he asks. “You’re not going to steal the towels, are you?”

“Do you really think I’m that big of an asshole?” He slings the biggest, fluffiest towel of the bunch over the shower door and turns to leave. “I don’t want you to freeze.”

The towel disappears. “Too late.”

Andrew pauses to watch Steven’s pale, lithe figure, blurred behind the shower door, hurriedly bundle himself and let himself out. He’s visibly surprised to see Andrew still standing there, waiting. He shuffles self-consciously. 

“What now?” Steven asks, his shivering lessened some. 

“We could watch something on my phone,” Andrew suggests. “YouTube or whatever.”

Steven nods, passing Andrew in the doorway on his way to get dressed. “I’m cool with anything.”

Andrew waits for him on the sofa, browsing YouTube’s recommended. The chill of the apartment begins to descend on him, raising goosebumps on his exposed arms. He’s wrapping himself in his sheet when Steven emerges, his hair swept casually backward, dressed in yesterday’s pajamas. 

“We could watch cooking videos,” Andrew says. “Alton Brown’s channel looks good.”

“Cool.” Steven disappears into the kitchen momentarily, returning with two mugs, and sits beside him unceremoniously, their thighs touching. “The water didn’t boil but at least it’s warm.”

Andrew thanks him and accepts one mug, relishing the heat it brings to his rigid fingers. 

They hunch over Andrew’s tiny phone screen between their laps, sipping in silence. Steven’s shiver is still prominent, traveling the length of his legs and knocking his thin knees together. Even within the refuge of the blanket Andrew feels the deep chill. He can only imagine what it feels like to someone as thin as Steven. Outside, the storm sounds to be worsening by the minute, the temperature inevitably dropping. 

It might be the first snow tonight. 

“How do you usually deal with the cold?” Andrew asks. 

“Space heater,” Steven answers stiffly, his jaw clenched to stifle the chattering. “Though it’s never been this bad.”

So, wordlessly, Andrew scoops his hunched figure into the blanket, cocooning them both. Steven’s surprised at now natural, how seamless, this gesture feels. This is the same dry-humored, cheers-averse Andrew he knew in LA, isn’t it?

They watch video after video, sharing body heat and the occasional remark about their fondness for Alton Brown. If it weren’t for Steven’s practiced restraint he would have crawled into Andrew’s lap by now, slithered his arms up his shirt like a chilly octopus, and absorbed every last trace of excess warmth. Andrew did run hot, after all, so he shouldn’t mind too much. 

“We haven’t cooked together much,” Andrew says, semi-absent, his eyes watching another of Mr. Brown’s masterful creations. “We should make that.”

“You’d have to hold my hand, walk me through it.”

Andrew, still focused, slips his hand obediently into Steven’s and squeezes. Steven’s face turns pink, and for a second he wants to object to this misunderstanding, but why fake it? He returns the gentle squeeze and they focus once again on the screen, grazing thumbs over each other’s knuckles. 

“It’s nice,” Andrew comments, glancing down at their hands. 

“Yeah,” Steven agrees blankly, wondering if he means the food or the touching. 

“Thanks for letting me hold your hand, Steven.”

Once again, Steven’s face goes hot. Andrew always said the things that maybe shouldn’t be, and he said them with the unwavering confidence that makes him both intimidating and desirable. 

If that weren’t enough, the way he says Steven’s name makes him feel weak. Dangerously low on willpower. 

Or maybe just high on his own reckless desire. 

He gathers up all the courage he can find in his shuddering body and leans forward to lay a kiss on Andrew’s cheek. 

Andrew pauses the video and looks up, watching the dead television before him. Then he turns to face Steven and commands in the gentlest voice he’s ever heard, “Do it again.”

“Sorry?” Steven asks, backpedaling. 

“You heard me. Do it again, properly.”

“You mean—”

“Kiss me. Properly.”

They both wait, holding eye contact for much longer than Steven had hoped. He gathers his courage once more and leans partway in, taking in Andrew’s warm breath and lingering in his scent. 

Then, a soft kiss. Steven breaks away prematurely. 

“I’m sorry,” he says nervously, scratching the back of his head. 

“I know why your girlfriend broke up with you,” Andrew says, in that particular blend of blunt and sensitive. “You didn’t want me to know, but you told me anyway.”

Steven’s heart beats faster. “What?”

“It was something you could only tell me when you were drunk. I didn’t want to force it back on you.”

“You can’t take anything I said in that state at face value, Andrew.”

“I can when your ex confirmed it.”

Steven doubles over in shame, dropping his face into his hands. “Oh.”

“Nothing has to ever happen between us, Steven, but I just wish you had told me.”

“How could I do that, Andrew?” Steven snaps. “Can’t I have a rightful fear of intimacy after what happened? Don’t you think I’d hate myself if I spilled my guts to you and suddenly you wanted nothing to do with me?”

“Well, how do you think it made me feel to know that you’d rather run away to New York than tell me what was going on?” Andrew’s face tenses, then softens abruptly. “Have I ever made you feel like you couldn’t be honest with me?”

“You know that’s not why I did it, Andrew.”

“Do I know that? My best friend, Steven the open book, was so determined to keep a secret from me that he moved across the country.”

“You aren’t entitled to know anything about me that I don’t want to tell you,” Steven snaps. 

The tone shocks Andrew. “No, you’re right. I’m sorry. I’ve just been trying so hard to rationalize this pain.” He takes a slow breath. “Trying and failing.”

Steven’s heart sinks. Pain?

Actual pain?

Sure, Andrew had seemed disappointed. He’d mentioned the sadness, the loneliness, but pain?

Somehow that realizes it all.

Despite his generally hardened exterior, Andrew is well versed in his own feelings. When he speaks his harshest truths, however, Steven has noticed that he never makes eye contact. 

And now, as that particularly harsh word resonates through the room, Andrew’s eyes are focused intently on the coffee table before him. 

Steven takes a shaky breath and calls Andrew’s name. Then, he is in his lap, tangling his fingers in dirty-blonde hair, kissing him with all the force of eight lonely and miserable weeks.


	11. Lengua

Andrew doesn’t expect Steven to move on him so suddenly, but he is more than welcome, and Andrew’s deep sigh of satisfaction makes this known. 

After the time he’s spent alone, he half wishes Steven could crawl into his chest and remain there until the lingering hollowness of solitude fades, and permanently. 

But this will have to do. 

Andrew lets Steven dominate him, pressing against him until his back touches the cushions, licking against his teeth, angling his chin to better explore him, tangling their tongues greedily against one another. 

Andrew’s hands, still gripping the blanket in surprise, finally find their place on Steven’s cheeks, cupping his jaw in supple palms, tracing along his cheekbones with silken gestures. 

Steven growls out some muddled sound of frustration, willing Andrew to want him with palpable, unabashed fervor to match his own, but no matter how indecently Steven conquers his mouth Andrew remains a perfect gentleman. 

Steven pulls the warm hands off his face and slides them down over his hips, and Andrew palms them experimentally, feeling the ridges of Steven’s pelvis through his clothes. Steven guides his hands lower, around to the back of his thighs, up to the soft flesh of his backside. Andrew allows a gentle squeeze here, also, but he tenses at the feeling of Steven’s long, drawling moan trickling into his mouth. 

Andrew breaks their kiss, eyebrows furrowing. 

“Is this just about sex to you, Steven?”

Steven frowns at Andrew’s visible unhappiness. “What else would it be about?”

“Well.” Andrew clears his throat, easing some of the tension in his lovely face. “More than that.”

“More?”

“Yeah.” Andrew watches him carefully, unable to hide the disappointment in his voice. “More.”

Steven sighs, agitated. “What does that even mean, Drew?”

“I didn’t come here just to sleep with you and never speak of it again.”

“Well, what do you want me to say?”

“I want to hear everything drunk Steven told me,” Andrew tells him, running both hands up Steven’s sides. “I’ve been thinking about it nonstop.”

“Well, drunk Steven’s an idiot, okay?” Steven abruptly scrambles off Andrew’s lap and stands, crossing his arms over his chest to guard against the penetrating cold. “It’s not like I can even remember what was said.”

“I see.” 

Simultaneously they both realize they hate themselves. They wait for the other to say something, shuffling to hide their hard-ons, but eventually when they realize neither wants to break the silence Steven turns on his heel and shuts himself into his bedroom. 

Andrew groans in frustration, lamenting over tomorrow’s inevitable awkwardness and wondering if he should just leave now to avoid it. 

They should have communicated better. Andrew feels like an idiot. Even he knows this rule of thumb: always establish expectations before ravenously making out with one’s best friend. 

He reclines against the arm of the sofa, curling up in the blanket, desperately wishing Steven were still in his lap, lending his warmth. Andrew won’t pretend he wasn’t tempted to splay out and let Steven have his way with him. He was desperately hard, brimming with want, but Steven’s sudden absence has left him hollow. 

Maybe Andrew shouldn’t have pushed it. Maybe he shouldn’t have even come here. It’s possible that whatever Steven felt that drunken night was only a product of his chemical high and harrowing depression. Had Andrew wasted his time here, longing for someone who had misinterpreted casual sexual chemistry for genuine affection?

The power doesn’t come on before Andrew’s phone dies. Then he’s alone in the dark with no distractions, and not even the slightest inclination to sleep. He tosses and turns till the wee hours, debating whether he should use this time to pack up so tomorrow morning is minimally miserable. 

He’ll rise punctually, dress, and thank Steven, but not before he orders his Uber. That way, the time constraint will limit the amount of awkwardness the once-dynamic duo can cram into their goodbye. 

Andrew cringes at the thought of another handshake like the one they’d shared when Steven left LA. It made him wary of handshakes long after, as if they would all be as awful and unbearable as that one. 

Andrew startles at the sudden appearance of a dark figure above him, a shock of silver hair just barely catching the foggy city light drooling in from the window. 

“Steven.” Andrew heaves a sigh of relief. “You scared me.”

“Sorry.” 

“You okay?”

“You can’t sleep.”

Andrew cocks an eyebrow. 

“The couch creaks when you move,” Steven adds. 

“Sorry. I didn’t notice.”

“It’s okay. I can’t sleep either.”

Even in the low light, Andrew can see every last detail of Steven’s tired face, his drooping, sleepy eyes and lanky, slouched figure. 

Andrew lifts the blankets, gritting his teeth at the cold rush of air, and holds them open for a moment. Steven nods, dazed, and crawls in beside him, and then it’s just the two of them smushed together on the sofa. 

How bold that was, yet fluid and effortless. As if this was their nightly routine. 

Andrew almost can’t believe his luck. 

They curl against each other silently, pressing noses into cheeks and necks and inhaling the smell of clean, cool skin. Neither dares to speak, lest words shatter the fragile moment. They wonder if such a moment would ever happen in the daylight, or if the darkness can be blamed for their courage. 

Steven nestles closer, burying his face into Andrew’s shoulder, and allows his shame to melt away. Andrew would never reject him the way Steven had. In spite of his fear, there is nothing here but calm acceptance and open, welcoming arms. 

They’ve both been reckless. But that’s an issue for the daylight.


	12. Cinnamon Toast Crunch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PORN
> 
> GIVE COMMENTS
> 
> THANK

Steven awakes to the light of the sunrise, filtering through his frosted windows. His exposed nose and cheeks are pinkened and cold in the frigid air of the apartment. He supposes he would have frozen to death overnight if it weren’t for the human furnace still asleep beside him. 

Across the living room, the television screen flashes a ‘No Input’ message. The kitchen light is visible at the edges of his vision, left on before the power outage. 

Hurriedly, Steven slips out from under the blankets to turn on the heat and kill the needless lighting. Before he leaves the kitchen, he snags a half eaten box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch and returns to the homely nest he and Andrew shared the night prior. 

Andrew awakes to the sudden breeze and an unfamiliar shivering beside him. 

“Steven?” Andrew slurs, groggy.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to wake you.”

“It’s fine.” He yawns. “You cold?”

Andrew doesn’t wait for an answer. He takes Steven into his arms, pressing their chests together, and nuzzles into his pale hair, casting a wave of warm breath down his neck. 

It is the most peace Steven has felt since the breakup. 

“Sorry about last night,” Steven murmurs. 

“Me, too, Steven.”

“No, it was my fault. The truth is the truth.” He clears his throat, straining for confidence. “Apparently I’ve had feelings for you for some time now.”

Again with that word, apparently. Does he really think he can distance himself from this?

Does he want to?

“Yes, you told me as much,” Andrew confirms, his voice even and calm.

“She broke up with me because she thought she was standing between us.”

“Was she?”

“I can’t say.”

“What else would it be, Steven, besides her?”

“Well, I guess three-thousand or so miles now.”

“What about right now, in this moment?” Andrew presses, tilting Steven’s chin up to look into his sleepy brown eyes. “We’re on the same couch.”

Steven softens at the glowing hope in Andrew’s warmly familiar face, a face he could watch for hours. “Are you saying you aren’t scared? Not even in the slightest?”

“Not even in the slightest,” Andrew affirms. “At least, not anymore. I’ve known life without you, Steven, and I don’t fucking want it.”

The confession stuns Steven into silence. Andrew confidently holds his gaze, awaiting his response. 

“Okay,” Steven says, mustering up all his courage. “Then I have no reason to be scared, either.”

Andrew cups the back of Steven’s neck, offering a timid smile, and kisses his smooth forehead. They sleep once more, wrapped in each other, wondering where they might go from here. 

•••

Steven awakes once more to the early morning light trickling in. Andrew is still beside him, crunching on cereal, watching the sparkling, tranquil snowfall outside. 

The apartment has warmed significantly since sunrise, but despite this they remain securely wrapped in their blankets, tangled together with a determination that wants to make up for lost time.

Both had abruptly gone from a proper bed, with plush pillows and all the mattress space they could want, to a cheap and cramped couch almost overnight. 

The knowing grin they share confirms that neither have ever slept better than they had the night prior. 

“The first snow?” Steven says, his voice scratchy. 

“Isn’t it breathtaking?” Andrew returns, offering pieces of cereal to Steven. “I do love this city.”

“You could stay,” Steven suggests, his soul wholly at ease, accepting each morsel Andrew gives. How wonderful that someone who loves to be fed has found someone who loves to feed. 

Andrew cocks an eyebrow. “Stay?”

“You know.” Steven clears his throat of lingering grogginess. “With me.”

“I suppose I could.” Andrew prods once more at Steven’s mouth with a piece of dry cereal, who accepts it with a smirk. “That’s a big decision, Steven.”

“I’ll commit,” Steven offers hurriedly, licking the sugar off his lips. “I just want you here. I feel like myself for the first time in ages.”

“Commit?” Andrew asks, surprised. 

“Date me. Move in with me. Marry me. The whole nine yards, I’ll do it all as long as it’s with you.”

“Steven—” Andrew begins, but Steven silences him with a long, desperate kiss, sprinkled with cinnamon. 

Who is Andrew kidding? He wants all those things and more. He’d taken Adam’s expert advice and explored his deepest desires, only to find Steven at the heart. He resides there, permanently it seems, on the deepest level of his consciousness. To be without him was comparable to weeks of shallow breathing, of walking the edge of insanity and starvation. Of an overwhelming lack. 

He’ll be able to say all these things eventually, but not now. Not with the way Steven grasps at his disheveled bedhead, and certainly not with the way his wanting breaths mingle against his cheeks. 

Andrew allows himself to be claimed in the syrupy romance of it. Before Steven it wasn’t much his style— Andrew was a gentleman of old-fashioned demeanor. Now, it seems, he’s a protagonist in one of Steven’s rom-coms, swept up in the carefree flirtation and beauty of the truest love he’s ever known. 

Then, Steven’s mood changes. Their hips collide and slip together, as if on instinct. A gasp escapes Andrew, breaking their delicate kiss, and they stare in utter bewilderment. 

“Steven,” Andrew breathes. 

Steven nods wordlessly, reading Andrew as he always has, recognizing the deep desire plain in his face. 

Andrew pulls them together once more, all but attacking Steven’s mouth, pinning his thin waist beneath his own. Steven mumbles out half of a curse word, letting his hands travel to the bottom of Andrew’s shirt before he takes two handfuls and yanks it upward and off. Andrew dutifully undresses Steven in his entirety, with a dexterity that makes Steven pant. 

His first time ever with Andrew. The thought makes him giddy with anticipation. 

“You’re good at this,” Steven remarks, his face flushed, his erection lain against his abdomen. 

Andrew smirks, equally flushed, as his eyes wander along Steven’s naked body, as lithe and flawless as he pictured. “Almost too good.” 

“I always imagined you would be.”

Steven smashes another heady kiss on him, biting eagerly at his lip, pulling the roots of his hair in the tantalizing pleasure of it all. 

Andrew bucks against him, casting a long groan out from his chest that makes Steven salivate. Andrew doesn’t remember if he’d ever mentioned his inclination toward pain, but here he is, speechless, throwing his hips in a helpless plea for more. 

“Holy fuck,” Andrew pants, biting down along Steven’s jaw to his neck, closing his mouth against his throat and sucking relentlessly, resisting Steven’s squirming, until a dark hickey forms. Andrew, in his mental fog, is rendered speechless by its harsh appearance. 

“More,” Steven demands, his fist tightening in golden hair. “Do more.”

Andrew complies, crossing his trachea, lipping Steven’s radiant skin, gliding his tongue down his jugular, before diving forward to raise more bruises along the entirety of his neck. Andrew doesn’t like to think of himself as possessive, but evidently Steven has forced him to learn an awful lot about himself, and now he’s faced with the realization that he wants everyone who sees Steven to know that Andrew has already claimed him. 

Before Andrew can recuperate, Steven is already tugging his hair again, pulling him forward against his mouth, laving his hot tongue over Andrew’s throat. Andrew tilts his head up to grant better access, willing Steven to mark him to an almost profane degree. He wants to walk the city tonight and flaunt the morning he spent conquering and being conquered. 

Steven obliges, gripping blonde hair to hold Andrew in place as he leaves an utter mess of hickeys over his neck. By the time he’s through Andrew is a quivering mess, begging for more, his breathing labored and his knees weak. No one has so masterfully sucked the life out of his neck in all his years, and the memory of Steven’s tongue and teeth on his skin makes his core boil. 

“What do you want?” Steven demands, catching Andrew’s swollen lip between his front teeth. 

Andrew’s eyes are clouded as he settles his gaze on Steven, alight with hot desire, ready to please. His body is twitching almost imperceptibly, his hand gripping his length, barely resisting the urge to chase his own pleasure. Andrew swallows, coasting his hand down Steven’s torso, and finally works up the courage to ask. 

“Let me fuck you.” He swallows. “Please.”

Steven smirks in a very Stevenlike way, reaching above his head to open the drawer in the end table, and reveals a long, skinny bottle of lubricant. 

Andrew cocks an eyebrow. “Why do you…?”

“I do my masturbating on this couch.”

“Do you think of me?”

“Every time, without fail,” Steven confirms boldly. 

Andrew’s mind is too foggy to be flattered. He dives at Steven once more, locking their lips together as he coats two of his fingers with the clear gel. They make eye contact once more before Andrew moves his lips to Steven’s chest, down his sternum, his abdomen, lapping at the top of his thigh. Steven sighs, finding Andrew’s hair once more, guiding his mouth over his length and all the way down. 

Andrew grips Steven’s knee with his dry hand, almost collapsing at the deep, pleasured sound that trickles from Steven’s lips, one that suggests that this sensation is long-awaited. It’s a sound Andrew has only heard in his dreams, and a sound he wants to hear every day for the rest of his life. That sound, paired with his hard heat nestled in his mouth. Life would be perfectly indulgent if he could pleasure Steven this way all the time. 

Just barely retaining his composure, he presses his mouth further down, taking Steven to the back of his throat and pulling slowly back. It’s absolute torture to Steven, who wants to rut furiously into the irresistable warmth with all his strength. He contains himself, still gripping Andrew’s hair and following his steady, tantalizing pace. He tilts his chin down to watch, peeking through slitted eyes, but the sight of it is simply too erotic. He jerks his gaze away and feels his orgasm trickle back down. 

Then he feels one warm finger press against him, and ever so gently slip inside. 

Steven gasps, pressing his thighs up against Andrew’s cheeks, his body tempted to wriggle and buck like an animal. 

He can’t even begin to articulate just how long he’s wanted this. 

Regardless of the piling desperation he forces himself still, allowing Andrew’s masterful prowess to command him. He relents completely, whining out a plea for more, wondering if Andrew is tormenting him intentionally, as if this were his idea of a sick joke. 

“God, please,” Steven chokes out, grinding against the rhythm of Andrew’s hand, willing him to reach deeper. 

“Relax, Steven,” Andrew tells him softly, sliding the second finger in, watching carefully for any symptoms of pain. 

Steven only grows more restless, more demanding. It does nothing to foster Andrew’s self-control, watching Steven writhe and beg, hitching voraciously against his hand and hissing out demands for rougher handling, for reckless pleasure. With the tips of his fingers he can feel the burning heat of Steven’s core, moving in sync with his greedy motions. He imagines what it will feel like to be properly inside him, fucking him, succumbing to his desires. 

Neither of them can take it much longer. Andrew retracts his hand, scooting up to furiously dash away his pants and drape Steven’s legs over his, and leans down to kiss him once more, savoringly, before they inevitably lose this tenderness to the voracity of indescribable sex. 

“You ready?” Andrew breathes, carelessly slathering another palmful of lubricant across his length. 

Steven nods wordlessly, his face and chest burning, his gaze blurry with want. 

Andrew aligns them then, holding Steven’s knees open, pressing against him until he feels the resistance give and grant him entrance. 

Then they slide effortlessly together, achingly slow, wary of mistakenly causing the other person pain. Their hips touch, and Andrew lets his head loll forward from the white hot pleasure that floods his body. 

Steven’s hands come down on Andrew’s cheeks, searching his eyes for something he can’t name, and presses a kiss to Andrew’s parted lips, relishing the lingering taste of cinnamon on his tongue. A moment passes as Steven adjusts to Andrew’s presence within him, intensely hot, stretching, but carnally satisfying. He can’t believe he waited so long for this. 

“Fuck me,” Steven demands, his fingers pressing greedily into Andrew’s skin, dragging his nails down his golden stomach and leaving a series of pale pink lines. “Please, make me see stars.”

Andrew nods, breathless, and braces his arms on either side of Steven’s head before rolling his hips, steadily, evenly, grinding against the tight warmth. Steven grits his teeth, not breaking eye contact, falling into the slow, controlled rhythm. They move together, leaving dazed kisses across exposed skin, gripping each other as though they might be lost in the pleasure. 

“You alright?” Andrew manages to ask, brushing a strand of silver hair off Steven’s forehead. 

“Harder,” Steven demands, his voice deep and dark, almost unrecognizable, angling his pelvis in a way that makes Andrew lightheaded. “I deserve it.”

He complies, of course, like the generous lover he is, bucking against him at a speed that makes the couch creak almost deafeningly. Steven throws his head back against the arm of the sofa, turning to muffle his cries of pleasure into Andrew’s forearm. 

“Let me hear you,” Andrew orders, inching Steven’s face toward his, insisting on eye contact. “Let me see you.”

Steven can barely comprehend the command, watching with hazy focus and half lidded eyes as Andrew fucks the life out of him. Their hips clap rhythmically together, adding to the symphony of sounds filling the small apartment. 

Andrew’s favorite by far is Steven’s slurred begging, his extended, whining cries, his muttered swearing and endearments. He didn’t think a person could make such sensual sounds, but Steven has always surprised him. 

Always tempted him. 

Jesus Christ, how could he have known Steven would feel this incredible?

He hadn’t imagined Steven’s body would take to his so effortlessly. Andrew hadn’t ever felt something so tempting, the way Steven absorbed him, relaxed around him, seemed to draw him in further. Is this what sleeping with a best friend is like? The unconditional trust? The familiarity? 

Love, maybe. 

Andrew kisses him, silencing Steven’s needy moaning, breathing in his hard-earned sounds. His pace quickens further, slipping deeper within him, feeling the heat of the friction between them. Steven’s legs curl around his hips, his hands clawing helplessly at the broad, warm back rocking ceaselessly above him. 

The pain returns Andrew to reality, dragging him from the animalistic haze just enough to recognize the building ecstasy on Steven’s lovely face. His pink lips, puffy from their ragged kissing, part wider with each cry, his hips bucking, his fingernails burrowing farther into Andrew’s skin. 

“Andrew,” he pants out, his voice lost, gritting his teeth. “Drew, I—”

“Come for me, Steven.”

It’s an order. 

Steven complies, hitching his pelvis roughly upward, throwing his head back against the cushioned arm of the sofa. Andrew’s name spills endlessly from his mouth as he comes, painting both their stomachs with several long, jerking spasms. 

Andrew’s eyes remain steadily focused, watching every reaction, drinking in the sight of Steven at the height of his pleasure. 

The pleasure Andrew provided. 

Andrew’s hands tighten into fists with the futile attempt to delay his own orgasm, but Steven’s twitching aftershocks are borderline overstimulating, the deepest and most fervent release unleashing at the base of his abdomen. 

The sound Andrew makes is a half-sputtered plea, something that sounds like the union of Steven’s name and a begging cry, and he buries himself as deeply inside as he can as he comes. 

The feeling of it is so intense that all he can do is close his eyes and hold Steven to him so he doesn’t collapse and tumble off the couch. They cling to one another, dazed, buzzing with lingering heat that contrasts with the knowledge that snow has coated the window. 

They have shared their first ever first snow, safe and snug on the same sofa, together in a way they had craved ravenously since their separation. 

“I could stay,” Andrew breathes out, burying his nose in Steven’s hair, feeling a chill begin to trickle down his back. 

The premise of returning to his lonely Los Angeles apartment bothers him deeply. 

“Please stay, Drew.”

Andrew finds himself grinning. Los Angeles hadn’t felt the same for a while. 

But he could stay, and rediscover that urban vibrancy, the glimmer the skyline used to wear whenever he stood at Steven’s side, listening to him ramble. 

He really could stay.


End file.
